In Focus: Infants and Toddlers
Mar 21, 2013 | Permalink »
Providence’s Early Childhood Initiative Wins Big for Its Focus on Early Language Development
Young children learn language through their environment. During infancy, babies are intensely listening to the sounds and words of the world around them. As toddlers, children begin to form simple sentences and questions and express ideas and opinions. During preschool years, children build a larger vocabulary, using more complex language and complete sentences. It is during these stages of language development that caregivers' support and understanding is essential.
Providence, Rhode Island is working to ensure caregivers understand just how important a young child's early language development is, and how they can best support it, through their new early childhood initiative, Providence Talks. The initiative seeks to increase and improve upon young children's exposure to language and vocabulary, and is based on research that shows that by age 3, children in low-income families hear on average 30 million fewer words than children in middle and upper-income families. This word gap can severely impact school readiness and future language skills.
Providence Talks will provide children under age 5 with small electronic devices that record every conversation and word spoken to them throughout the day. Parents will then receive monthly coaching sessions with social workers on how to boost their child's vocabulary. The devices are able to filter out television and radio, and will also work for English, Spanish, and other languages. In order to prevent them from being damaged, the device will come with special clothing that holds it in place. The program is voluntary, and the city intends to offer it to all low-income families. By 2018, they hope to have 2,850 families participating.
Pitched as part of Bloomberg Philanthropies' Mayors Challenge contest, Provide Talks was recently awarded the contest's $5 million grand prize for its innovation, impact, and potential to be implemented in other cities.
While the program's long-term impact has yet to be seen, Providence Talks is a new and innovative approach to improving young children's language and vocabulary in both the short and long-term. It is one example of a growing recognition of how important adult-child interactions, like those found in high-quality child care and early education, are to improving children's language and literacy skills.
Mar 04, 2013 | Permalink »
Early Childhood Comprehensive Systems Dollars Announced
States working to coordinate and increase access to comprehensive services for young children in child care and early education settings have the opportunity to pursue new or renewed Early Childhood Comprehensive Systems (ECCS) funding through a competitive federal grant process announced on March 1. The full announcement details the potential uses for the fiscal year 2013 grants, emphasizing services to infants and toddlers in child care, and highlighting three potential areas of work:
- Addressing the effects of toxic stress and trauma among infants and toddlers;
- Expanding and coordinating developmental screening in child care and early education settings; and
- Strengthening health and safety related quality standards for child care and early education programs serving infants and toddlers.
ECCS is a relatively small, but extremely flexible, source of federal funding that can be used to build and manage partnerships among early childhood stakeholders. A total of 52 grantees currently use the grants, up to $150,000 annually, to support statewide collaborations that increase access to health and development services for young children. Applicants can look to CLASP's Putting it Together: A Guide to Financing Comprehensive Services in Child Care and Early Education for details on how ECCS can support activities, including developmental screening, as well as specific examples of existing partnerships in states. The ECCS grant requires collaboration with administrators of other federal funding streams highlighted in Putting it Together, and specifically lists potential partners including Title V, Medicaid, Project LAUNCH, and IDEA Part C/Early Intervention.
The ECCS application deadline is April 26, and the three-year grants would run from June 2013 through May 2016. Current grantees include a variety of state health, human services, child care, and other child serving agencies.
Feb 21, 2013 | Permalink »
Continuum of Learning Act Reintroduced
While the excitement around President Obama's new Early Learning Initiative was making headlines last week, Representatives Polis (D-CO) and Young (R-AK) reintroduced the bipartisan Continuum of Learning Act. The legislation, which is complementary to the President's initiative, would strengthen the connections between early childhood programs, local education agencies, and elementary schools by making changes to Titles I and II of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). Title I provides financial assistance to states and school districts to meet the needs of educationally at-risk students, while Title II addresses preparing, training and recruiting high quality teachers and principals.
While current law permits school districts to use ESEA funds for children from birth through school-entry, this legislative proposal would more intentionally encourage districts to use funds in ways that increase the availability of high quality child care and early education. Further, it would require districts to provide information on how they use funds to support quality early education. Among other provisions, the Act for the first time would require local educational agencies to report on how Title I funds are being used for children prior to school entry, something CLASP has long advocated. This change in reporting would ultimately give the local early childhood community needed information to understand where the most vulnerable children are being served and to work with schools and school districts to combine funding to increase the availability of high quality child care and early education.
Finally, the Act encourages states to take a leadership role in promoting districts' use of Title I dollars for early childhood programming, in coordination with local early childhood stakeholders. CLASP's research finds that this can be an effective way of leveraging the financing needed to provide high quality full-day and year opportunities for children before the age of school entry. Coordination at this level is critical to the President's Early Learning Initiative, which builds on current state and district preschool funding.
As more details of the President's Early Learning Initiative unfold and the Continuum of Learning Act makes its way through Congress, CLASP will continue to advocate for these and other policies that increase access to high-quality programs and services for children beginning at birth.